Film on young astronaut hopeful beamed to space station

Mar. 10, 2014
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In a screen shot from "I Want to be an Astronaut," then-high school student Blair Mason is shown at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Va. Behind Mason is the shuttle Discovery. / "I Want to be an Astronaut"

by Traci Watson, Special for USA TODAY

by Traci Watson, Special for USA TODAY

There will be no red carpet, no paparazzi, no screaming fans. But the upcoming showing of a new film will have a certain cachet all the same: It will take place in space, in what may be the most expensive movie theater of all time.

The high-altitude screening will take place aboard the International Space Station, the $100 billion-plus orbiting laboratory where astronauts from around the world live and conduct scientific research. The film, a documentary about the space program and one determined young man's dream of becoming an astronaut, was sent to the station last week.

"To have this be seen in space - I still don't know how to find words to describe how awesome that is," says filmmaker David Ruck. "I hope (the crew) can see this kid and say, 'Yep, that was me once.' "

Station crew members often decompress from their heavy workloads by watching movies, among them numerous celluloid versions of space travel. Station residents watched Star Trek Into Darkness in 2013 before American audiences could buy tickets, and station astronaut Rick Mastracchio took time off from his duties last month to watch the space film Gravity. "Let's call it training," Mastracchio jokingly tweeted.

The film that will premiere on the station is about as far removed from a Hollywood blockbuster as the station is from Earth. Requested by Mastracchio after Ruck sent him a Facebook message, the movie, I Want to Be an Astronaut, began as Ruck's master's thesis and was financed in part by crowd-funding website Kickstarter. An earnest plea for support of America's space program, the film focuses on Blair Mason, an intense and charismatic teenager from Chantilly, Va., as he pursues the ambition he's held since age 3 of flying in space.

The camera shadows Mason as he shepherds his high-school robotics team through a competition, watches intently as space shuttle Discovery is ferried to an aerospace museum near his house and begins his studies at the U.S. Naval Academy, which, he notes, has graduated more astronauts than any other U.S. institution.

Becoming an astronaut is "a long and complicated process," Mason, now 19 and earning academic honors at the Naval Academy, acknowledges in the movie. "I don't know what I'm going to encounter along the way, but I don't think I'll ever lose that dream."

Mason could not be reached Monday, but his parents say their self-effacing son might shrug off his appearance on the space station. They, on the other hand, hope the zero-g screening will benefit the space program and the crew alike.

"I'm thrilled that the astronauts on the space station want to watch it," says Robert Mason, Blair's father. The film could get "word out that â?¦ the space station's still up there, our astronauts are still up there, and it's still relevant."

"It's a good message to the astronauts â?¦ that there are still kids who want to be just like them, that they're still seen as role models," says Joanna Mason, Blair's mother.

At the moment, there's no U.S. vehicle her son could pilot into space. The shuttles were retired in 2011, forcing astronauts to travel to the space station on Russian spaceships. The rocket NASA is developing now is controversial and prone to cancellation. Ruck hopes the space program can stay the course.

"We clearly have it within us to do these things, and we need to decide we're going to do them," he says. He wants audiences to "feel (Blair Mason's) hopes, his dreams, his excitement. And I want them to feel responsible for whether or not he accomplishes his dream."